The Best And Worst Of WWE NXT 6/5/13: Great T-shirts And Bad Splashes

– Don’t be afraid to contribute to the discussion in our comments section, click the “like” button and share the column on your social media things. Last week’s column did really well, so if you’d like these columns to continue, let’s keep that going. If they do well enough, I’ll eventually be forced to write about everything on television. BEST AND WORST OF RING OF HONOR, HERE I COME!

– If you’re wondering where you can watch NXT, it’s currently on Hulu Plus every Thursday. If you’re like, “weh, I don’t want to have to pay for Hulu Plus to watch wrestling,” it’s the best wrestling show and Hulu Plus is like 8 dollars. Just do it, it’s fine. You aren’t gonna miss 8 dollars. You can watch this week’s episode (as long as they keep it up) here.

That makes some sense though. I have a friend who’s an amateur wrestler that had a nose injury a while back, which led to him wearing a protective mask when he wrestled. He only needed it if he was in danger of injuring his nose, so he only wore it during matches. When he was just watching matches he could take it off.

A-Ry is… yeah. When I went to see Raw last year, the first match (either dark or for Superstars) featured him and it wasn’t a good way to get me excited for wrestling. That being said, after a few matches featuring people of his caliber and lower, Zack Ryder got a huge boost because hey, it’s a guy we know that isn’t A-Ry, and we’d like to be even semi-interested in the wrestling that’s been going on for the past half-hour.

I humbly submit team name suggestions for Ohno and Graves:
Team Where The Heck is Antonia Cesaro and Why Isn’t He with Ohno?
Team Let’s Try To Get These Guys Over as Tweeners
Team Knock Down (from Stay Down and Knock Out obviously)

Sounds like this was a weaker episode of NXT, which sucks. At least I’m not bummed out I’ll be missing tonight’s airing on The score at 5. (which is their new time). OK, a little bummed because everyone needs more Paige in their life.

The whole “F Bo Dallas” thing gave me a chuckle. I *think* Brandon was being a bit “tongue in cheek” when he covered that whole segment. He still made sure to point out Big E committed an annoying wrestling trope. He just also made a point that he dislikes Bo Dallas. But with jokes.

+1, at least E could stay in character during his “lol nerd” lines. Bo couldn’t stop chuckling every time the audience tried to boo him off the stage, even during the “THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO ME YOU GUIZ” parts. Absolutely terrible.

Completely. Though I have to be honest, I was more distracted that I was seeing an Op Ivy t-shirt on someone in wrestling who’s name didn’t include C, M, or Punk.
(Yes, this was the first time I’ve seen Zayn/Generico on anything)

But if he really liked it and was being earnest about it? Then the next time he sees Cesaro he has a bigger and more colorful one and tells Antonio “This is how to rock a man-purse. Another thing I’m better at then you.”

I was really hoping Sami was being genuine about wanting to know where Cesaro bought the satchel too. I thought he was just assuming Cesaro was being a jerk and keeping all the super cool manbags to himself.

There is nothing guys on the Internet go for quicker than “hypocrite.” If there is any gray area whatsoever to your argument, or you’ve ever wavered or changed your mind, you’re a “hypocrite.”

I can selectively be anything I want, because the column is what I thought about the show. It’s not an objective judgment of wrestling and decency. I liked Big E ripping on Bo because Bo sucks, and Big E pointed out a bunch of the reasons why people like me think he sucks. When people like Sami Zayn make fun of Cesaro for having a purse, it’s asinine. I disagree with it, so I voice a complaint. Telling somebody who sucks that they suck isn’t something I’m going to complain about. I don’t like WWE’s forced idea of who is good and who is bad. This wasn’t that. It also has nothing to do with what they do to AJ.

I’m convinced Bo is becoming Cena 2.0. He has soooo many detractors in spite of being pushed hard as a good guy, and usually it seems most of the cheers are girls screaming while the anti-Bo chants are decidedly older males. He thinks everything is funny, apparently, just like Cena, who laughs off every single bad thing that happens to like “Eh, no big deal.” And he’s just not that good. I’ve also seen him do a lot of comeback wins, like Cena (some recent match against Bray Wyatt he was getting his ass kicked, hit his finisher out of the blue and won).

BTW, my biggest fear with Bray Wyatt is the idiot fans chanting “Hus-ky Har-ris!” because they think it shows how smart and cool they are (See: Tensai, Lord)

Cena is good even if you dislike everything about him. When he makes gay jokes toward his opponents, as awful as they are, he’s confident and full of personality. When he wrestles his one match, he still puts his all into it. Even from his early days, you could see the guy was going to be a star and only he could stop himself from being one.

Bo Dallas is lame as all. He’s an awful talker and a bland wrestler (if you want to see an old Kofi Kingston match, you can go to youtube or you can watch NXT to see Bo do one).

Best case, Connor O’Brien and the other random dude with steam punk goggles could be a decent tag team I guess? Give them a mouth piece and you’ve got the Acolytes 2.0. pretty 2d, but hey, they did green light the highlanders at one point.

I have seen no El Generico in these parts. I want my delightful luchador. I heard this delightful fellow in a mask who did great things was on NXT and I don’t hear Bouncing Souls, I don’t see a mask…all I see is a generic white guy in an Operation Ivy shirt and punk-esque clothes making bad Cena jokes.

Well, I just shrugged of the man-purse remark as more of a “Zayn watches WWE on TV and know Cesaro hates it when someone refers to his satchel as a “man-purse”, so he calls it that to make him angry.” Maybe I overthink it, but the deliberate way he said it made it seem that way.

I guess the 4 who gets through the first round of the NXT Womens Championship Tournament will be Summer Rae, Emma and Bailey (Though they could keep Alicia Fox around as she actually isn’t useless in the ring, and it would be to obvious if only the NXT members advance).

I think Mason Ryan seems to have gained ground wrestling wise, as he looks purposeful, more athletic and more sure of himself in the ring. I’m not giving up on the Cardiff Giant just yet. Possibly because I still dream of a heel-stable called “United Kingdom” with him, Wade Barrett, Sheamus (Ireland first seceded UK in 1922) and Drew McIntyre.

Last but not least, why would they try to hide the heat on Bo? He’s clearly being set up for a full blown heel turn.

It’s on the ad break, and I know he’s going to lose, but Cesaro got some absolutely beastly offense in the match against Sheamus on this weeks Main Event. As a bonus, Sheamus has yet to do anything other than wrestle. Extra bonus, on commentary Ricardo had to tell Miz what a “head scissor” was called.

I’m glad you brought up the two major problems I had with this episode: the contract singing and Tamina Snuka still being employed. I mentioned how useless she was last week, so just assume that plus everything Brandon said. As for Paige, I’m still not completely sold on her yet find her oddly fascinating. She’s got a look, that’s for certain.

But contract signings, yikes. They never worked to begin with, and they work even less in a post-kayfabe world. Has anyone ever stopped to think how useless signing a contract for a wrestling match is when said wrestlers are ALREADY EMPLOYED by said wrestling company? Did John Cena and Ryback secretly sign a contract between lawyers backstage after their title match was set up? How does that make any logical sense and why would you even bring it up? Just say “Wrestling! And the company agreed to let these two beat each other up because it is what we pay them to do.”

Something I’m surprised you didn’t bring up more was the commentary. I wish Maddox would do more on the main shows, but he was delightful this week despite some ghastly squashes. There was one moment where he went into a lazy bit about how Mason Ryan eats so much and I actually a) Believed Maddox b) Didn’t groan out loud as compared to when Cole talks about how Ryback eats the entire GDP of the universe every week c) Sort of laughed at said dumb line. It’s a dramatic improvement from usual commentary nonsense.

But overall, a pretty weak episode of NXT…which still makes it better than most of WWE’s main content lately.

I look at it like this: the UFC has all of their fighters under contract as well, but they still sign individual fight contracts for each opponent they’re slated to face. Granted, none of them are done inside the Octagon and they don’t degenerate into name calling and shenanigans, but it’s not entirely as unrealistic an idea as you seem to think.

I had no interest whatsoever in Bray Wyatt–barely watched NXT–until I saw these bits on Raw about the Family pop up. It was the first time I’d seen anything so legit creepy, so I logged into my nifty Hulu Plus account and started watching NXT looking for any mention of Bray Wyatt and the Wyatt Family that I could find.

These dudes are fucking geniuses. There was a certain point in pro wrestling where a thing called “psychology” was valued. I never really got a good solid grasp on this until I had some people talk to me who had been in the business and I had some people who were really clued into the psychology aspect of wrestling matches school me on it. Bray Wyatt has this shit down COLD.

Watch the latest NXT to get a good feeling of this. Every single bit of Bray Wyatt’s nuances shows he’s got enough confidence in Luke and Eric to win until that ONE point when Graves and Ohno come close to winning. Then out of the corner of your eye, you can see Wyatt sit up. He takes notice. Then he comes to the ring, interferes…looks like he takes a hard shot in the process, but he sacrifices himself for the win because it’s for the good of the “Family.” After the match is over, he’s got that deranged smile on his face and he’s giggling.

This is called “telling a story,” and it’s something the WWE’s major leaguers seem to have forgotten (save for Rollins, Reigns, and Ambrose, who are consistently the best part of Raw and/or Smackdown each week). I hope and pray the WWE doesn’t screw with a single aspect of the Family the moment they get to Raw, because this will sell tickets and get ratings.

For once there will be a genuinely creepy heel that will look and act EVIL. He will unnerve people. And parents will buy tickets, and old-school fans will buy tickets to see this guy get his ass kicked. And it will be MONEY for WWE.

Has anyone seen that video package promo thing with Paige with her saying that she in fact ISN’T an “anti-diva” even though she calls herself that on Twitter and on a few occasions on NXT as well, I think. She just flat out said that others labeled her that but that she actually is a diva, only she’s the diva of tomorrow… And that’s cool and all, but I was really looking forward to her going to the main roster, beating everyone, winning the Divas Title, looking at it like “Wot the bloody ‘ell is this” and bring the all new, WOMEN’S title to the WWE main roster as well… But with her “accepting” that she really is a diva, or whatever, things are looking a little bleak. I still like her, though, and think she’s gonna be awesome on the main roster as well. And I really do hope that next week Sami comes around with his own “man-purse”, and explain to Cesaro that he really did only want to know where he got his (I know someone mentioned it already here before, but I really like the idea).

Brandon, come on. Just because he made one comment about Cesaro’s purse, Sami Zayn is suddenly like a guy who beats up people for no reason, sounds like a douche and is in general an unpleasant person?

Come on, man. I thought that he was basically the same as he was, and that his character was just being put in a confrontational situation. He was still charming to Renee, he motioned her away when he started to get pissed, and he actually stopped being in a fighting mood when people pulled him off.

You shouldn’t suddenly label someone as something just because they exhibit the SLIGHTEST symptom.

Tamina is fine at wrestling, technically speaking. She might have trouble on the indies, but she’s fine for the current sorry state of things. I will fight you over her prettiness though. She is right there with anyone on the current roster when it comes to beauty. I like do athletic, muscular women though. But anyway, back to more important matters. Much like Cesaro and his epic uppercut, Tamina’s finisher should be her swank superkick. No one as physically imposing as Tamina should need to fly around to beat anyone anyway (don’t say Mike Awesome, he was good at flying, but he didn’t *need* to). So no, she was not literally born to do the Superfly Splash. Don’t feed into that forced lineage bullcrap. She can’t do it properly, so she shouldn’t be doing it! It is not a necessary element to connect her to her father.

I don’t think I said she was ugly, did I? I thought she was hot as fire when she was briefly Vickie Guerrero’s macho bodyguard. She’s just a “homely Diva” like AJ, where she’s obviously not ugly but “one of the ugly ones” in WWE’s eyes.

Ohno gets to rock that shirt clean because I GUARANTEE he is the only guy on the NXT roster who, at the pre-match handshake, asked Misawa “Are you gonna s#ck my dick, or what?” It was a joke, of course, but that’s a REAL risk!

I personally didn’t have a huge problem with Zayn’s comment- which although was kinda lazy writing, did make sense. Here you have Zayn doing an interview and in comes Ceasaro to interrupt him AGAIN (like he did a couple weeks ago) and to start talking sh*t. If there’s one thing I know about shit talking, the easiest way to combat that is to go after the most obviouse ridiculous part of the other guy, in this case it was Cesaros man purse (what Jerry Seinfeld would call a “European Carry-all”). I mean, I can’t even take a wrestler (let alone a normal dude) seriously if he’s wearing a beret and carrying a purse.
I know it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that Zayn is going the way of a Sheamus face but based on that promo it’s a bit too early to tell. Cool your jets for a minute and let’s see what happens in the coming weeks.

I think watching every episode of Raw ever made has given me the right to assume where shit is going. People are always telling me to wait and see where it goes, as if I have not seen where everything else ever has gone.